


Did you get my memo?

by nicolesolo



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Corporate AU, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Modern AU, Palpatine is mentioned but he's dead and an asshole, Reylo - Freeform, Soft Ben Solo, and then comes SMUT, ben and rey are executives, ben solo does not know how to flirt and it fucking shows, it's a big misunderstanding, or are they enemies?, ridiculously soft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:55:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24782692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicolesolo/pseuds/nicolesolo
Summary: “Oh.” Rey paused. “ So you don’t hate me?”He shifted uncomfortably, but his arms tightened around her. “I—I would think that holding you for so long would give the opposite impression.”Rey’s eyebrows crinkle. “The opposite impression of what, of hate?” She shook her head. “ Ben, that’s…”Oh.---After her hasty promotion to executive at the Skywalker Fund, Rey keeps finding malicious memos on her desk. But are they half as evil as Rey believes? And why does Ben Solo care?
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 72





	Did you get my memo?

**Author's Note:**

> CW: mentions of child labor, human rights violations (all mentioned very briefly, in the context of them being horrible)

For a charity, the Skywalker Fund sure felt cutthroat.

Rey expected camaraderie and kindness when she joined the nonprofit last year. As an administrative assistant, she hoped that she would get to make real change—or help the people making real change, at the very least—and make some friends along the way. The other admins and assistants were nice. They bought her first-day drinks and invited her to happy hour, got a cake for her birthday and asked about her weekend. But the kindness started and ended with those on her level. She learned the hard way that the executives were far crueler.

The lesson came shortly after her surprise inheritance: a grandfather she’d never had the displeasure of meeting leaving his entire fortune to his family. With her parents dead and no other lineage found, Rey was the only person to accept the funds. And the funds were _massive_.

Evidently, her grandfather—Palpatine—managed a rather large portfolio of stocks in companies that ensured their successes by undercutting the costs of others. Outsourcing, cutting corner, layoffs…Rey took one look at the list of for-profit prisons, media conglomerates, and underhanded charlatans in her father’s portfolio, and said she was done with it. She sold every share, gave ninety-five percent of the proceeds to the Skywalker Fund, and put the other five percent in a retirement fund for herself—after all, she didn’t want to be an administrator forever.

And she got her wish to escape that job much sooner than she expected. When the CEO Leia heard a lowly admin donated billions of dollars to the fund, she brought Rey to a new office bearing a new nameplate. “Rey Nemo, Executive Director, Palpatine Fund.” Suddenly, Rey was responsible for sorting through the funds she’d tried to push out of her view, determining which charities to donate to, what should be anonymized and what wouldn’t, learning about charitable tax laws... It was exhausting, but rewarding to know the blood money she’d gotten by chance was going towards making the world a better place. She almost liked it after she settled into the idea.

Until she went to her first executive meeting.

Rey viewed the executives as icons in her year as an admin, each of them a titan who occasionally descended from on high to ask for a figure, a form, something silly that was below their holy duties. Rey would look at them with bright eyes and nod, convinced that the light shining from them was real, not just a figment of her imagination. They were kind, benevolent angels, set to distribute the fortune of gods.

The glow was still there when Executive Director Rey met them, but by the end of their first meeting, it had faded to black. They refused to look at her. Whenever she tried to speak, one of them would talk over her. She asked anyone to pass her a copy of the agenda, the other execs pretended not to hear her. _Maybe I did something wrong_ , she thought.

But when the meeting ended, the executives continued to ignore her, racing out of their seats to head out the door, brushing past her with nudges of her chair that felt a bit too intentional. Rey stayed glued to her seat, trying to understand what she’d been a part of.

Armie, the CTO, stood over her and set the record straight. “Wipe the false naivety from your brow, Miss Nemo.” His voice was a snarl ripped from thin lips. “You knew what you were doing. We worked for our jobs. Don’t think that buying yours makes you the same as us.” Before Rey could even process his words, Armie had left. Rey was alone.

She could feel the tears threatening to overtake her decorum, a cup set to run over. _They hate me. They think I bought my way here. They don’t understand_ —

A light cough interrupted her thoughts. She hadn’t noticed before, but she wasn’t quite alone. Ben Solo stood near the head of the conference table, papers stilled in his hands. _Of course it’s him. It had to be him, didn’t it?_

Because Ben Solo wasn’t just any other executive. He was the Hercules to Leia’s Zeus, the Jesus to her God. Leia ran the company, and had no plans to retire, but Rey and everyone else knew that one day, she would pass the torch down to her son Ben. He’d worked at the Skywalker Fund since he was an intern at sixteen, quietly sifting through files and sitting in on meetings. The quiet part hadn’t changed, even Rey knew that, but he’d grown into all the bits and pieces that make a CEO. The navy Tom Ford suit that hung perfectly off his broad shoulders. The confidence with which he picked up the papers, dropped their edge against the table once to straighten them, then tucked them away in his messenger bag in a smooth motion. The swagger with which he moved, crossing the space until he stood directly across from Rey.

He was supposed to be the quiet soul. The kindest angel of all. The one who would one day lead them. Right then, Rey hoped he would be the nice one to pass her a tissue, apologize for his colleagues, offer to grab lunch. She wanted to get to know the man behind the legend, stare into those brown eyes until they filled her vision. She wanted to apologize to him, and for him to show some kind of forgiveness for whatever she’d inadvertently done.

Ben Solo’s posture stiffened. He bit the inside of his cheek. He nodded at Rey, once, so barely there Rey wasn’t sure it was real. And then he was gone.

Just like everyone else, Ben Solo hated her.

The cup ran over, and Rey’s sobs escaped her chest, echoing across the sterile conference room walls. She sobbed until the sky outside turned black, and she’d been sobbing each night since.

Because it had not gotten better since that first meeting. The other executives made it abundantly clear: they believed Rey had bought and paid for her position, that she arranged it with Leia like some kind of bribe. Worse, they dug into where the Palpatine money came from, found all the destruction the companies that gave the profit made. And for the same reasons Rey did, they deemed it filthy, full of acts and deeds the Skywalker Fund would never approve of. And they wanted to make sure Rey knew that even her money wasn’t worthy.

She began to find papers on her desk, news reports of damage done by the companies she’d sold shares of. Sometimes they were left unmarked. Sometimes they were pocked with a sticky note giving an all-too-clear slap: “Fix it.” The guilt ate away at Rey, no matter how many days she worked overtime, how many nights she fell asleep in her office because she couldn’t sleep at home with all the guilt. Her good fortune came on the back of evil. She couldn’t change where it came from, but she could change where it went.

Rey could tell that this was going to be one of those nights. Tonight’s note sat just beside her fingers as they flew across her keyboard: a newspaper clipping detailing how one of the companies Palpatine owned major stock in had hundreds of human rights violations in its overseas factories. There were deaths. _Multiple_ deaths. Including child laborers. The thought of it made Rey’s stomach swirl, imagining a thirteen-year-old dying on the factory floor. There was no sticky note for this one, but Rey felt the drive even without it. _I have to make this right._

The sun had gone down, she’d sent her team home, hours passed and she still worked in her office. She would do all the work herself, if that’s what it took. She had to make it right. _I have to._ She was so engrossed in her work that she didn’t hear the knock on the door until it came around a second time.

“Huh?” Rey looked up, her eyes taking a moment to adjust to the darkness outside of her computer. “Did the lights shut off already?”

“They did.” The voice was soft and deep, an eddy in a river, pulling her in and leaving her feeling safe—even if she still couldn’t see who was talking, even if the voice was familiar, but unidentifiable. “They shut off automatically at nine.”

“It’s past nine?” Rey looked back at her computer to see the time and immediately regretted it, the light blinding her after she’d finally looked into the dark. “I didn’t notice…”

“Working too hard?” The voice stepped forward, and now that Rey’s eyes adjusted she could see.

Ben Solo was standing before her desk, the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. _Mocking me._ Any hope of this being a friendly visit—the custodian asking her to vacate so she could clean, a good-natured assistant saying goodbye before heading home—vanished as his hulking frame sharpened in her vision. He was here to intimidate and bully, to shame her further.

Rey wanted none of it. But she didn’t have much of a choice.

Assuming his last question was a dig, she countered with, “What are you doing here so late?”

Ben shrugged, his suit jacket hugging muscular shoulders as he did. It was unfortunate, Rey thought to herself, that Ben’s clear hatred of her didn’t train her brain to find him unattractive. But no matter what this man did or said, there was no getting around it: Ben Solo was hot. “There was work to be done. Forms to sign, decisions to be made…crimes to make up for…” His eyes slid to the newspaper clipping on her desk, the smile widening.

Understanding hit Rey so hard her chin jerked down. This clipping wasn’t just from anyone.It was a personal gift of vengeance from Ben Solo himself.

Rey traced the corner of the newspaper with her finger, hating herself for ever hoping, even for just a second, that Ben Solo would be different from the rest.

He continued, his low voice only furthering her shame. “I assume you still being here means you found a suitable charity to make up for the wrongdoing? You’re finalizing the donation amount and form, I hope.”

She couldn’t believe the casual way Ben condescended her, his tone bordering on a threat. Rey rushed out of her chair and turned to the window, desperate to hide in case this time, her body reacted the way it had in that first meeting. He shouldn’t get to see her cry. “Yes,” she said in a whisper, her eyes refusing to look at Ben’s in the reflection, even as he came closer to the window.

He pressed further, not content that she’d done something, needing to make sure she’d done the _right_ thing. “Which one?”

“Safe Hands,” she said, forcing her voice to steady itself as she recited from notes she’d practically memorized. “They lobby the government for improved work condition laws in central China, and perform randomized safety checks of manufacturing facilities with overseas management. Working to keep the government and corporations in check.” They were a good find; in fact, the Skywalker Fund had partnered with them in the past. But that was long before they expanded to include random checks. “Finn worked with them before,” she added, hoping that would add further credit to her case.

“A good choice.” Ben nodded. His smile was still too wide for Rey’s liking, so far into gloating territory… “Though I believe Finn stopped working with them because he found a company with greater reach and deeper pockets to champion that cause. The Safe Outsourcing Coalition, I believe.”

Rey gaped. _Everything I did to fix it, and Ben Solo had the answer all on his own._ He’d let her fail, let money go to waste, all for the sake of humiliating her further. _All I’ll ever do here is drag everyone down._ She wanted to be brave, to not let him see the effect all this had on her…but the tears were already spilling, hot streaks tearing down her cheeks. “I chose wrong, then?” She hoped her voice was strong enough to hide her tears.

“Not wrong, just...” He sighed, and Rey let out a sniff, hoping the sound would cover it.

Ben’s head whipped to look at hers in the reflection. “Fuck, are you crying, Rey?” His smile faltered slightly.

_Well, no hiding it now._

It was for the best, she supposed. She was tired of not sleeping, of feeling endless guilt, of never belonging in a place that promoted everyone finding a home there. And she was tired of keeping it all to herself.

She raised her eyes to look at his in the reflection, daring him to look at her tears and laugh. “Yes, Ben. I’m crying. I’ve been crying.” His smile didn’t change, so she plowed on. “Most nights, I stand here and cry until I can’t anymore. Because everything I do isn’t enough. I inherited a fortune I didn’t want, gave it all away, and was thrust into a promotion I never asked for! And when I try to do anything to earn my place or even just prove that I’m not worthless, I am shut down.

“Ever since I took up this job—the one that I never asked for—someone has been leaving stories on my desk. Stories about how the companies my grandfather—a complete stranger to me, by the way, because nobody ever asked me about that—funded are ruining the world. With instructions that I need to fix it. Because it’s my fault.

“I thought it was all of them, the executives bullying me as a group, but it was you, wasn’t it?” She realized it as she watched his smile slowly slide into an expressionless line. “ _You_ sent them. The future CEO. You know, I hoped you might encourage me. Maybe be an ally.” Rey could feel her breath shortening as she thought of that first meeting, the way he’d looked at her in the conference room. She wanted to be more than allies with him then. A primal part of her brain still wanted that now. “But you bullied me worse than any of them. Left me with veiled threats. Manipulation. Well, I’ve been here all evening working on this one, Ben. And I haven’t even done it right, have I?”

“Rey,” he says softly, but he still had a half-smile, and Rey couldn’t do this anymore, _goddamnit_.

“You could’ve just fired me, Ben. Put me out of my misery. But you…” a sob escaped as she realized the truth of what she said, “You hate me so much that you would rather torture me here. Because you know I won’t leave. You know I can’t.” Sobs racked between sentences now, but Rey wasn’t stopping. “You know I feel responsible for that money, that pain, and that I won’t rest until it’s put to good use. And so you feed that pain. You use it. You use _me_.”

The sobs made it too hard to breathe, forcing her silence. She desperately tried to pull herself together, clutching her arms to her chest to keep from falling apart. But the sound of her sobs echoing off into nothing, and the sight of Ben Solo watching in the reflection, eyes fixed…she couldn’t hold it all in. Rey closed her eyes and pressed her head against the cool glass.

The next thing she knew, warm arms surrounded her, cradling her to fabric scented in cedar and whisky. She knew, _she knew_ exactly who they belonged to, but she was so eager for some comfort, some compassion, that she leaned in anyway. _I hate him_ , she thought. _I wish he would leave me alone. I wish he would go, right now, and never come to my office again._ But she let him rub his hands on her back, let herself enjoy the comfort of his chin resting on her head. _I just wish it would stop._

Ben’s hold didn’t stop, but eventually, Rey’s tears did. He held her tighter to his chest, and even though she was certain she hated him, she stayed there until she cried out every tear left in her, her face so dry it feels like sandpaper. When she tried to pull away, his arms were too strongly wrapped to let her. “I should go home,” she said, desperate to escape to live with her shame on her own. _He’s going to tell all of them about this. I may as well quit now before this hell becomes worse._ “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—“

“No, Rey.” Ben released his grip enough that he could lean pull back and look her in the eye. “You have no reason to apologize. I, on the other hand…I’ve gone about this all wrong.”

Rey didn’t fight to get out of his arms, though she kept her eyes down, trained on a spot on the glass behind him.

“You’re right,” he admitted in a low whisper that warmed the space between them. “I did leave those notes for you. But not to intimidate you. I—I realize this is wrong now, but I was trying…to encourage you.”

He did it, then. Rey shut her eyes, fighting down the tears that were threatening to resurface. He’d been her antagonist, setting her up for depression from the start. And to think that she’d expected better of him.

But on the other hand…Ben Solo was apologizing, it seemed.

To _her_.

Rey looked up into his eyes. There was honesty there, and the smallest reflection. She didn’t know what say, so she settled on, “How?”

Ben looked away. “I…I’m sorry. This is hard for me to talk about. I’m not good with…” He scrunched his nose, “Vulnerability.”

Her gaze turned to a glare. There was no point holding back now, so Rey shook her head at him. “I just told you off and cried all over the fifteen thousand dollar suit of you, my future boss. We’re past vulnerability, Ben.”

He laughed, and the sound was so sweet, so soft for such a mass of man, that Rey temporarily forgot he was responsible for her constant pain. He sighed before speaking again. “I saw you once, when you were an administrator—I don’t remember why. I needed a document and you were tasked with getting it for me. But I remember seeing _you_ , and thinking, ‘That’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.’”

Rey stifles her inhale, preparing for the punch. The most beautiful creature _…but. There’s a “but” in there, there has to be._

“You know how people talk about taking a mental picture?” Rey nodded, and Ben’s lips softened into a smile. “I took one of you then. Your hair was back in a bun, but there were some rebellious pieces falling down around your cheeks. Wearing a navy sweater with a pink collar—“

“My birthday,” Rey remembers. Ben smiled wider. “It’s my favorite sweater. I only wear it on special days.” A blush spread across her cheeks.

Ben bit his lip and nodded. “Your birthday… I held onto that mental photo for months. Thought about it when Armie was bossing me around and I needed to calm myself down. I brought it up every time my mom tried to set me up on a date, and thought, ‘Does this date have the same smile as this girl? That little dimple?’ They didn’t, of course.” He looked at her with wide pupils zeroing in on the dimple over her cheek. “But I forced myself to put the photo away. I didn’t know you. I had no right to hold you on this pedestal. I let it go.”

Rey tried to parse out her anger and bring it to the forefront. She _should_ be angry at Ben, for thinking about her like this, then using it to justify his cruelty. _Hear him out_ , she reasoned with herself, silencing the warring parts of her mind arguing to punch him or kiss him.

“And then,” Ben continued, his voice verging on a laugh, “When I finally could dream without imagining you standing beside me, my mother told me about a new executive. The granddaughter of Palpatine, inheriting a fortune made through horrors. And my mother told me you gave it all away.

“I didn’t believe her, at first. I’ve met many kind people who’ve donated to the Skywalker Fund, but no one, _no one_ , has given away such a vast majority of their fortune. And to do it without asking for anything in return…” Ben shook his head, his eyes glued on Rey. Rey fought the urge to blush. _Stop letting this man charm you_. “I asked my mother to talk to you before she gave you the position. I warned that everyone should have a choice in their role. But my mother is headstrong to a fault.”

He chuckled, and Rey offered half a smile, a small concession to him. “The other problem was—and is—the other executives. Each and every one of them, despite their…well, dickishness, worked for the position they have. Like the hours you pulled tonight, but for years on end. For them, seeing someone come in with no experience like that, just a year of work under her belt... Rey, I’m not saying I agree with them that you didn’t deserve your role. I would give it to you again in a heartbeat. But I understand why they’re upset.”

“But you didn’t stop Armie in that first meeting,” Rey allows some of the war in her mind spill out. “You let him say those things to me, and… you did nothing.” She looked, hoping to find an answer in his face. Otherwise, all she could do was go on hating him.

After a long pause, Ben nodded. “There’s no excuse for letting him do that to you. It has haunted me every day since. I’m sorry, Rey. I truly am.”

_Maybe I hate him a little less._ But there were still the newspaper clippings. “You still haven’t explained the news stories.” Rey’s back stiffened as she thought about the file of them, all stored in the bottom drawer of her desk.

Ben bit his lip, his teeth dragging on the soft flesh. “I’ve made many mistakes, Rey. But I’m starting to think that might be the worst.”

She stared at him, waiting. _He needs a hell of an explanation for this._

“I wanted to encourage you. After what happened with Armie… I thought that if I were in your shoes, I would quit. And you, someone who gave away your fortune without a second thought? You were far too good for us to lose. And on a less professional level, realizing that the woman my mother hired was _you_ …” He released a sigh that sent warmth through Rey’s chest. “I didn’t want to let you go.” His voice hardened. “I wasn’t going to just let you go.

“But as the future head of the company, interfering was out of the question. So, I sent you the clippings. I thought that they would encourage you to continue stoking the fire against what Palpatine did in his lifetime. And you reacted to the first one so quickly—“

Rey remembered it clearly. “The oil spill in Alaska. I allocated ten million to the cleanup effort—“

“And another ten towards lobbyists fighting drilling in Alaska” Ben finished for her, a grin from ear to ear. “Half to immediate response, half to solving the problem overall.” His right hand spread on her back, the thumb gently rubbing between her shoulder blades. Rey relaxed back into the touch without thinking twice.

“I was sure that meant you were motivated by the note. That those sort of actions assuaged any lingering guilt from your relation to Palpatine. So…” Ben released a deep sigh, one that Rey could feel from where their chests pressed together, “I sent more. To keep encouraging you. But…it looks like it did the opposite of encouraging you.” He wiped a tear away with his thumb.

She offered a small nod in response. What was she supposed to say? Sorry she hadn’t told him they made her cry? But that her sorry was unnecessary and stupid? That they should’ve just talked to each other, and then maybe…maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe she would be in his arms for entirely different reasons.

_Maybe I don’t hate him that much. Maybe I don’t hate him at all._

“I’m sorry, Rey,” he said, and squeezed his arms around her a bit tighter. “You deserve better from your future boss, and from a friend. I’m going to go to Armie in the morning and issue him a formal warning for his behavior. I’ll make an announcement at the next executive meeting, explaining your value, why you should be appreciated—“

Rey felt something lighter rising in her chest. Not another sob, closer to a laugh. “Ben—“

“—and that your opinions should matter just as much as theirs. I will do anything, _everything_ to undo the pain I caused you.” Tears hung at the corner of his eyes, threatening to blur those pupils Rey had been staring into for so long now.

“You did all that for me?”

“It was obviously misguided and poorly executed, but…” Ben bit his lip again. Rey was going to need him to stop doing that if she was going to work for him in the future. “Yes.”

Rey was still processing it all, sifting through her feelings about this new perspective on the narrative of her pain. “I don’t understand… Why?”

_How is he biting his lip_ more _?_ “I—I saw you, first.” The tears retreated, and a spark of light replaced them. “And I thought you looked like an angel. And after what you did with that money…I knew you were.”

“Oh.” Rey paused. “ So you don’t hate me?”

He shifted uncomfortably, but his arms tightened around her. “I—I would think that holding you for so long would give the opposite impression.”

Rey’s eyebrows crinkle. “The opposite impression of what, of hate?” She shook her head. “ Ben, that’s…”

Oh. _Oh._

Ben didn’t hate her. He didn’t hate her at all.

And after all this, the chaos and back and forth and hurt feelings…she wouldn’t settle for anything left uncertain. They needed clear communication, clear _answers_ , or she was going to keep suffering until the day she died. So this new theory that she felt fairly sure of…she needed to know it for sure.

“In that case,” Rey said, intending to keep her tone as breezy as possible, in case this didn’t go how she was thinking, and she had to pretend it didn’t matter, “I’m going to try something that might be incredibly stupid.”

Ben’s eyebrows raised, but Rey didn’t give herself time to overthink. She just closed her eyes, leaned in, and kissed Ben Solo.

**Author's Note:**

> y'all KNOW how chapter 2 is gonna go 🥵
> 
> come find me on twitter! @nicolesolo_ao3
> 
> also I don't have any reylo friends yet so...if any of you fellow fic writers/readers want to beta or exchange fics for beta'ing send me a twitter DM!


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